Wireless communication devices implement numerous schemes and procedures in order to operatively communicate with other wireless devices. Legacy devices often communicate via legacy communications schemes which may or may not be supported by devices on more advanced networks. Additionally, some remote devices may be power constrained, meaning they cannot transmit beyond a defined communication range based on their maximum transmit power level. Lack of a common communication scheme or transmission power issues may prevent a legacy device from being able to effectively send data or other content to more advanced networks. Moreover, devices contained on the advanced network will often be unaware of the existence of the legacy device since they cannot communicate directly.
An exemplary legacy device can be a Bluetooth enabled device, such as a wireless picture frame. The wireless picture frame can send and/or receive content, such as digital photos, from devices that support Bluetooth communications. In the case of the picture frame, devices that do not support Bluetooth would not be able to publish digital photos to the picture frame, nor would they be able to receive digital photos from the frame. The communication constraints of the legacy device prevent it from being accessible to devices that do not support the legacy communications scheme. For example, a Wi-Fi enabled computer may have photographic content available for the picture frame, but it may not support Bluetooth connectivity. In this case the computer and picture frame would not be able to communicate or share content.
In another example, a legacy device may be a wireless transmitter coupled to a sensor monitoring external stimuli in its general vicinity. For example, a sensor may be monitoring the functionality of a street light to ensure it is in operation during the correct time of day. However, the wireless transmitter coupled to the sensor may be power constrained or may not support a wireless communication scheme that would allow it to send sensor data to a server that aggregates data from that sensor. For example, if the transmitter coupled to the sensor has a maximum transmission distance of only a few meters, a member of the maintenance staff may need to manually check the sensor for sensor data periodically. This requires that a user manually go to the sensor to receive the sensor data transmission, and then send an update to the server with the information manually received from the sensor. The device aggregating the data may be a server located on a network far removed from the location of the sensor and its transmitter, making aggregation of the data time-intensive and requiring a great deal of manual intervention.
It is contemplated that many sensors will have limited transmission power in order to minimize energy usage and could use relatively low-power transmission schema such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, or the like. In this case, a sensor transmitting via a legacy communication scheme may not be able to successfully send the sensor data to its proper destination because the sensor cannot communicate with the destination directly.